Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Possessed sausages and life amongst the boxes

This was a good morning, except for the sausage.

The Things and I got up in plenty of time for them to finish the homework they negotiated last night to do this morning, so we were off to a grand beginning.

I, in a fit of domesticity (and due to a notable shortage of milk), decided to cook up some real brekkies of aigs and snausages so that my children could attend school with a nice hot meal in their tummies that would, no doubt, assist in their ability to absorb knowledge and perhaps even improve their handwriting. Therefore, several yummy pink maple-scented sausages were deposited in the skillet to brown in luscious fashion while I 1) made coffee, 2) scrambled eggs, and 3) made their lunches. Oh yes, I was on TOP of my game!

While busily building ham n' cheez samliches for their oh-so-lovingly-made brown bag lunches, I noticed motion out of the corner of my eye where motion ought not to be.

The frying pan.

One of the sausages was rolling back and forth, from the middle to the edge of the pan, and then back again.

Over and over and over.

I stared for a moment or seven at the strangely animated sausage, wondering what on this green earth could cause it to skitter around in such obvious fashion. Bugs in the meat? An aversion to heat? A bacteria-laden treat? Something more neat?

Being slightly weirded out wasn't helping get breakfast cooked, so I stopped the incessant to-and-fro with a pat of the spatula. At which point it started rolling again. Back and forth, hitting the pan edge on one end and a fellow meaty slab o' breakfasty goodness on the other end of its travel arc in a vain attempt at escape.

I had visions of The GingerBread Man, I did, that involved me chasing a slightly steamy meat link down North Main Street while it eerily chants in a Mr. Bill voice "run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the sausage man!" and here to tell you that THIS turn of events started to truly weird me out, not only because I thought of it at all, but because I immediately began to believe it could actually happen.

The second slap of spatula stopped the sausage's
sinister slithering.

Once it was well and truly dead, I ate it. Tasted fine, but if I listen closely I can hear a faint "oh noooo!" coming from the area of my abdomen. No, really. I can.


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Also! The moving saga continues, in somewhat abbreviated fashion. More books have been unearthed, all of which are being deposited in my bedroom for lack of anyplace ELSE to put them right now. I envision that one day there will be bookshelves tracing a line of literary possibility along the living room walls, but for now all that potential is shut up in boxes that once held paint, just waiting to burst forth and inspire me to once more read (the books, of course, and not the ghosts of paint past).

Amongst the books was discovered another treasure from my past: the photo album I kept while in high school. Oh, the pages are turning darker with age, but it appears that all the photos therein have been well preserved. The teenaged me peeks out from the pages, arm in arm with old and dear friends. In one, I am in the band room on graduation night with all my closest friends. It appears as though we all made a deal to wear white dresses - mine was made by my mother, a mandarin-style sleeveless affair with a stand-up collar and cap sleeves. It was a gorgeous satin material with a white-on-white print and a thin belt. Man, could my mom sew. Man, was I skinny. There I am, laughing with Kai and Libby and thinking that the whole world was my oyster.

In so many ways, I was right.

Other items retrieved from the boxes o' stuff: a teapot I don't remember owning, some very unattractive pottery, a set of condiment dishes, the changing table set that my MIL had when HER kids were little (to be returned to the spousal unit), reams of papers from the Things' early school years, lots of random pictures, 2 boxes of Christmas decorations, and a bunch of sheet music from high school.

There are about 8 more boxes to unpack. I am eager to see what's in them, and hope I have a place for everything I want to keep. Some of this stuff hasn't seen the light of day for a good 20 years, and I think that's quite long enough, don't you?

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More tomorrow, and if you're very good boys and girls today, I might even make it interesting.

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